I am boiling with rage right now, the reason being the scum of the earth company called GameStop. Their dwindling stock price should be a good indicator of the inherent value they provide to customers. However my story is more retail than fundamentals.

Here is the gist of it. I needed to purchase some stuff of GameStop, as I normally do I got a discounted gift card (around $300) for GameStop from Cardpool and went on my merry way to make a purchase at the local store. I have done this many times before however this time it was going to be a bit different. As I went to the checkout counter the young lady there told me she had to ‘call it in’. Wait, was I at a GameStop or at a traffic stop, law enforcement usually uses terms like ‘call it in’. Being Indian, I am used to some level of discrimination, so I pretended to not mind and waited as the agent talked to someone on the line and boy she was in no hurry to resolve the matter. After a few jokes she hung up and looked at me. What she said next totally shocked me, she told me she couldn’t accept the gift card as it had been issued to someone else.

That makes absolutely no sense. Gift cards are by nature transferable and are like cash. The gift card I had also said nothing about any such terms. She told me there is nothing she could do and they have further frozen the gift card (WTF!). She further asked me to contact customer service.

I went home and I contacted customer service, waited a couple of days and got no response. Shitty service indicator number 1. I then filed a BBB complaint against this company and finally got a response, Here are their replies in their full glory :

Gamestop Response 1 :

On behalf of GameStop, we apologize for this poor experience in association with our company. After further research into this issue I have verified that the information you have provided does not match the information with the trade transaction. We will only be able to speak with the owner of the account used on the trade transaction.If you have additional questions, I am here for you.

Shilo | Guest Care Support Associate | GameStop | Service Matters

Service matters is their slogan, how ironical. How about unethically and illegally making money from unsuspecting customers.

My Response :

Gift cards are transferable entities, if someone trades with GameStop and gets a gift card it does not mean that he has forever wagered his/her soul to Gamestop and must use it. He/She is able to sell the gift card and I purchased one such gift card. Its not a credit card or a debit card.

Then things got a little too personal, GameStop apparently wanted me to establish a chain of ownership to the person who 1st had the card. A good analogy is every time you use a $20 bill, you must establish a chain of ownership to the 1st person who was issued the bill. That’s obviously ridiculous. Gift cards are like cash, almost every gift card says its like cash. Anyway, this is how they responded :

GameStop Response 2 :

On behalf of GameStop, we apologize for this poor experience in association with our company. As you have stated this gift card was not purchased or obtained from GameStop. You will need to contact Card Pool about this issue.

If card pool can provide proof of them purchasing the card from the previous customer and then sold the item to you we will be able to resolve the issue by providing a new card to you.

If you have additional questions, I am here for you.

Now to those who say this is reasonable, think of it this way, what if the gift card has changed multiple owners. Also, why would card pool ever reveal who they bought the card from, it would be a breach of privacy for the original seller.

Dear Shilo from GameStop ends with : “If you have additional questions, I am here for you. “

I did have a few more questions and points :

My Response 2 :

Do all gift cards sold by GameStop need to have change of ownership reported to GameStop ? Now you are just making up rules. The reality is that your associate who felt she was being super diligent committed an error in judgment possibly due to my race ? Your overzealous associate on the phone went ahead and disabled the card at his/her end just because he didn’t want a large transaction to go through. The store clerk actually said she had to ‘call it in’ a terminology which law enforcement uses kind of getting to my point of overzealous-ness again.

Even though I had possession of the gift card and had purchased it legally, GameStop went ahead and disabled it without having any legal basis to do so. Gift cards are like cash and unless reported lost or stolen this suo-moto action of GameStop is most definitely illegal. Its a legal debt to the person with the possession of the gift card.

Like I said, I am under no compulsion to ask cardpool or to give my information to you, you have the burden of proof to show the gift card was stolen or obtained by illegal means. By not allowing me to use a legal debt like a gift card GameStop is the company which needs to provide clarifications and not me.

I will be sure to report this matter to my state’s AG office as its obviously illegal and also use the social media to spread the message.

And they never replied back.

True to my word I filed complaints with the FTC as they regulate gift cards and also complained to the Washington state attorney general. I would have sued them in small claims but looks like Cardpool will be refunding my money. If someone else had a similar experience, let me know, maybe we can get a class action lawyer to take this up if we have enough victims. Making consumers prove the ownership trail for store Gift cards is moronic to say the least.

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Conclusion

I am going to wait for their response to the WA State Attorney General, hopefully their legal department would be smart enough to see their snafu. Imagine how much money Gamestop will start amassing by introducing this arbitrary rule and then just freezing gift cards. I am safe thanks to card pool, but you may purchase a GC from a friend or a colleague and then GameStop will just freeze it and steal the money.

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And this is why you don’t buy second hand gift cards. It says clearly in their terms they can do this.

Having worked as a manager in a pawn shop I can tell you first hand where a VAST majority of these gift cards come from. Sure, small $20 or $50 cards might be legit. $300 though? Career criminals steal what they can here and there. Then they pay someone with a valid ID to return it all. Then they take the store credit and buy a gift card with it. Leave a trail police won’t bother to trace. They sell the gift card to people or pawn shops for 50% value because hey… Still free money for them. By the time it makes it to the person second hand the company has already flagged the suspicious return and cancelled the card.

Gamestop, Home Depot, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, if it’s retail I promise you there is millions of dollars of these cards being sold, criminals just make way too much safe cash on it.

Thanks Chris, however as I mentioned, its not in their terms. It would be a very shitty Giftcard if it were non-transferable.

Their terms state that its a liability of the company. also, if you read WA state gift card laws, even in bankruptcy they owe me this money. Imagine if stores could just null and void gift cards, how would that world work ?

A trade card does not equal a gift card. Trade cards are registered to the person’s information that traded them in. They have to legally sign in order to obtain the trade card. Your argument is void because you can’t distinguish between the two completely different currency cards.